


Blood Samples

by Saki101



Series: Other Experiments [21]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 01:16:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/425322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saki101/pseuds/Saki101
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has left John a number of mysteries.  John is beginning to piece some things together.</p><p>Excerpt:  Like desert sunlight. Bright slants clearing the horizon, slicing through the dawn chill, not yet drawing blood from pores, peeling skin back from bones. The first pale caress making the heart leap at the renewal of light, the revelation of the enemy cresting the hill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Samples

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of [The Other Experiments Series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/15644) which forms an AU frame for _The Experiments Series_ which begins with [Zygomata](http://archiveofourown.org/works/331460). _Blood Samples_ follows directly after [Uncalibrated Measurements](http://archiveofourown.org/works/413938).

John pulled his right hand out of his pocket, scattering a number of coins across the pavement. It wasn’t necessary. No one was at the bus stop and what passer-by would do more than glance at a man crouched on the footpath running his fingers over the concrete? Well, he was outside a hospital; someone might enquire if he were all right. John dropped down to collect the coins.

Nothing happened. Temperature remained constant, head steady. John’s fingertips skimmed along the rough surface as they made their way to each coin. He took a deep breath, pressed his palm flat against the paving stones. _No drop left for me?_

“You all right there?”

John glanced up at the young man standing above him, jacket collar turned up against the evening air. “Yeah, thanks.” John picked up the coin nearest his hand, held it up. “Dropped a few.”

“Right, then,” the man said, took a step and stopped. He moved his foot to the side, bent down and pulled a fifty pence piece from a crack. “Found one for you,” he said, handing it to John and smiling.

“Ta,” John said as the man turned away. There was a bit of dirt clinging to the coin. John closed his fingers around it. Nothing.

He squinted at the hospital entrance, looked over his shoulder at where he had stood and watched… He was definitely in the right place, but there was no reaction. _Was the clean-up here so much more effective than on the roof? Or did the foot traffic complete the task?_ John shook his head. _If he touched you, shouldn’t I be able to feel it at least a little? I felt it when I kissed Molly’s finger._ John sat back on his heels. The cement hurt his knees, but he didn’t want to get up yet. _Hadn’t there been time for it to circulate?_ John picked up the last coin. _When I touched your wrist, did I feel anything then?_ John huffed and stood, eyes still on the pavement. _Hard to separate that out._ Pivoting, he dropped the coins into his pocket, looked both ways and crossed over the road. He paused before he turned and lifted his head. “You saw me from there,” John murmured, his eyes skittering away from one point on the roof. 

_From the first, you saw me._

_I hadn’t liked being invisible when I returned, a face in the crowd, a man in the queue. Not as I had been, eyes turned towards me as towards the sun, for solace, salvation, in agony, fear, with anger or hope, insolence or deference, but never indifference. I was the last thing some people saw. Sometimes all I could do was bid them farewell. I had considered bidding myself farewell._

_And from the beginning, I felt you._

_The first flicker of your eyes over me, the waves of your voice asking for many things. The requests had hung in the air, but I had waited. You had asked Mike. I waited for him to give you what you needed. It was only polite. He didn’t seem to feel the compulsion, the need to run from the room to get you what you wanted._

_I felt it. My nerves bristled with it. I waited another instant, Mike was an old friend. I couldn’t believe he didn’t feel it. I couldn’t wait longer. “Here, use mine,” I said, holding out my phone. Your eyes were on me again._

_Like desert sunlight. Bright slants clearing the horizon, slicing through the dawn chill, not yet drawing blood from pores, peeling skin back from bones. The first pale caress making the heart leap at the renewal of light, the revelation of the enemy cresting the hill._

_“…in the mortuary.” Dark cloth swirled._

Don’t you dare turn away. _The thought was loud in my head._

_“Is that it?” The question lashed out and pulled you back._

_The timbre of your voice lowered, your words curling about me as you stepped closer._

_Noon. The air undulating with the heat, light piercing every crevice, not a shadow in which to shelter._

_“That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” you concluded._

_How clearly you saw me. You winked before the door closed after you._

_A swath of lavender along the horizon. Desert sunset. Abrupt._

_I stood there dazed, the cool twilight a relief._

 

Only John's eyes moved, along the parapet, down a few degrees and back up, his chin resolutely raised.

The mobile buzzed in his pocket. His hand slid over it, his eyes dropping from the roof.

“Yeah?” John said, answering the phone without checking the number. 

“Where are you?” Mike’s voice asked. 

_Should be you asking, Sherlock._ “Getting a breath of air,” John said.

“I thought you might have gone home,” Mike began.

 _Where is that now?_ John rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. 

“Molly’s sleeping. I was going to get something to eat from the canteen.” Mike continued. 

John scanned the edge of the roof again. There were lights winking on inside the plywood and plastic tent over the scarred surface. “When did you last check on the roof?”

“About half an hour ago. I’ll go up again later. The workmen took a break. They should have the whole area cut out straight through to the recovery room ceiling tonight,” Mike replied. 

John nodded. “Was it still bubbling?”

“A little, mainly in that one spot,” Mike replied. “Join me in the canteen?” 

_I made the roof boil, Sherlock. Shouldn’t there be at least a little reaction on the footpath from traces of your blood?_

“John?”

_Unless you were immune to Moriarty, too._

“John?”

_Is that why he killed himself?_

"John?"

“Sorry, Mike. Do you have a sample of Sherlock’s blood, by any chance?”


End file.
